Government and society

Constitutional framework

Because Northern Ireland is a constituent element of the United Kingdom, its head of government is the British prime minister, and its head of state is the reigning monarch. Although the 1920 Government of Ireland Actenvisaged separate parliaments exercising jurisdiction over southern and northern Ireland, the architects of the partition anticipated that the new constitutional entity to be known as Northern Ireland would prove too small to be viable and would be rapidly absorbed into a united Ireland. However, because the northern Protestants staunchly opposed the idea of being governed from Dublin, the Irish border has persisted into the 21st century.

The political powers devolved to the new legislature in Belfast by the act of 1920 were considerable (including control of housing, education, and policing), but the new government had little fiscal autonomy and became increasingly reliant upon subsidies from the British government. The form and practice of the new parliament in Belfast mirrored that of Westminster in many respects; for example, the legislature consisted of a Senate and a House of Commons. Under the terms of the partition settlement, London retained control in matters relating to the crown, war and peace, the armed forces, and foreign powers, as well as trade, navigation, and coinage.

Parliament Buildings at Stormont, east of Belfast, N.Ire.

G.F. Allen/Bruce Coleman, Inc.

When the Irish Free State formally seceded from the British Empire and constituted itself as an independent state in 1949, the British government sought to allay the fears of Protestants in the north by passing legislation stating that Northern Ireland was and would remain an integral part of the United Kingdom. The Act of Union, which entered into force in 1801, abolished the Irish Parliament and provided for Irish representation in the British Parliament. After the partition of Ireland in 1922, Northern Ireland continued to send representatives to Westminster. Over the years the number of members of Parliament (MPs) elected in Northern Ireland has grown to 18. Northern Ireland also elects delegates to the European Parliament (the legislative branch of the European Union).

In response to a deteriorating political climate in Northern Ireland and to years of horrific levels of communal violence, in March 1972 the British government of Edward Heath suspended the Belfast parliament and Home Rule and began governing the region directly through the secretary of state for Northern Ireland. From the outset the British government sought political settlements that would foster stability and enable the restoration of a revised version of devolved power in the region. However, for more than 25 years a series of attempts to introduce either a power-sharing executive or a new assembly proved unsuccessful.

Nevertheless, political settlements continue to be proffered. On April 10, 1998, the Good Friday Agreement (Belfast Agreement) was signed by representatives of various political factions in Northern Ireland, paving the way, many thought, for the end to the theretofore intractable Troubles. Moreover, referenda based on the agreement were passed overwhelmingly on both sides of the Irish border, with about 95 percent of Irish voters and 70 percent of Northern Irish voters endorsing the agreement. While the Good Friday Agreement envisaged changes on many fronts, its central concern was political accommodation between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland.

Under the terms of the initiative, the Assembly established in Belfast is obliged to operate along consociational lines, and the Executive includes both unionists (Protestants who support continued British rule of Northern Ireland) and nationalists (Catholics who support a united Ireland). Initially there were 108 members in the Assembly, with six representatives from each of the 18 constituencies in Northern Ireland. To reduce political costs, in 2017 the number of representatives per constituency was reduced to five, dropping the number of seats in the Assembly to 90. The Northern Ireland Assembly sits at Parliament Buildings, Stormont Estate, Belfast. The legislature selects a first minister and a deputy first minister, both of whom need the support of a majority of unionist and nationalist legislators. Moreover, legislation can be passed in the Assembly only if it has the support of a minimum proportion of both unionist and nationalist members.

Initially at least, the powers exercised by the new Assembly were slated to be relatively minor. Control over key issues such as taxation, policing, and criminal justice were retained by Westminster. Further devolution of authority was dependent on the success of the initiative. While opposition to the agreement existed on both sides, it was especially strong among unionists. The future success of the peace process seemed to hinge on whether the issue of “decommissioning” of paramilitary weapons, particularly by the Irish Republican Army, could be resolved. Although considerable progress was made toward decommissioning, there continued to be significant opposition to the peace process by some segments of the unionist community. In 2002 devolved power was suspended, and Northern Ireland was ruled from London. In subsequent years the more moderate parties that negotiated the Good Friday Agreement were supplanted as Northern Ireland’s leading parties, making it more difficult to achieve compromise and the return of power to Northern Ireland. In 2007, however, the more hard-line Roman Catholic Sinn Féin and Protestant Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)—the latter having previously refused even to meet with representatives of Sinn Féin—reached a historic settlement to form a power-sharing government, thereby allowing the return of devolved power to Northern Ireland.

Local government

Local government in Northern Ireland has undergone two major restructures since the early 1970s. In 1973 the existing two-tier system of local government—6 counties and a countyborough, 24 urban and 26 rural districts—was replaced by a single-tier system of 26 districts, each with an elected council. In April 2015 those 26 districts were consolidated into 11 new districts: Antrim and Newtownabbey; Mid and East Antrim; Armagh, Banbridge, and Craigavon; Belfast; Causeway Coast and Glens; Derry and Strabane; Fermanagh and Omagh; Mid Ulster; Newry, Mourne, and Down; North Down and Ards; and Lisburn and Castlereagh. Under the new system the district councils had responsibility for urban renewal, community development, planning, and roads, along with local tourism and local economic development.

Justice

In most respects the administration of justice parallels the system in the United Kingdom as a whole and is administered by the Crown Court, the High Court, and the Court of Appeal, with final recourse to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which assumed this responsibility from the House of Lords in 2009. Minor offenses are dealt with by a magistrates’ court, others in county courts supervised by a judge and subject to a jury. The exception is politically motivated crimes (“terrorist offenses”), which are heard by a single Crown Court judge with no jury. In 1995 the independent Criminal Cases Review Commission was created to examine convictions and sentencing as part of the appeal process.

All citizens 18 years of age or older are eligible to vote. For elections to the House of Commons in London, members are elected by plurality vote in single-member geographic constituencies. In contrast, elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly and to the European Parliament are conducted by the single-transferable-vote formula, a form of proportional representation that virtually guarantees representation for the various sectarian parties.

From the outset the political culture of Northern Ireland has been dominated by the “border question,” with political aspirations in the region often closely associated with ethnoreligious background. The overwhelming majority of Protestants prefer that the union with Great Britain continue, and they most often vote for those parties dedicated to that end. Political attitudes within the Catholic community tend to be more complex. Opinion polls conducted in Northern Ireland indicate that a substantial minority of Catholics are essentially indifferent to the constitutional future of the region, and it seems likely that those Catholics who have secured significant material gains since the introduction of “direct rule” from Westminster tend to be disinterested in the border question. Most Catholics, however, aspire to a united Ireland and vote accordingly. As a result, the Catholic community as a whole is generally characterized as nationalist. The proportion of representatives from unionist parties in the House of Commons generally has been greater than the overall share of Protestants in Northern Ireland.

Unionist parties

The finer details of party political life in Northern Ireland tend to reflect the divisions that exist within the two main communities. For most of the 20th century, unionist politics in Northern Ireland was dominated by the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), but during the unrest that began in the 1960s the monolith of unionism disintegrated into a bewildering array of parties. Consequently, contemporary Ulster unionism has been defined by its accommodation of a host of competing, often contradictory voices. Indeed, in recent elections unionist voters have been faced with the choice of no fewer than six parties, as well as an endless stream of independents.

Nevertheless, since the 1970s, unionist politics in Northern Ireland has been dominated by two main parties: the UUP, whose support declined in the last decades of the 20th century, and its principal competitor, the DUP, which opposed the Good Friday Agreement and traditionally tends to be less open to political compromise than the UUP, perhaps partly because it is supported by more fundamentalist Protestant denominations; following the 2007 elections, however, the DUP agreed to form a power-sharing government with the nationalist Sinn Féin. Another “loyalist” party, the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), has ties to the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force.

Nationalist parties

The political allegiances of nationalists are divided between two rather different parties: the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), the principal voice of Irish nationalism since the 1970s; and Sinn Féin, often characterized as the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Appealing primarily to the Catholic middle class, the SDLP has insisted that a resolution of the conflict in Northern Ireland is dependent on dialogue and compromise. Its strategy—centred on unionists and nationalists sharing power and on closer ties between Belfast and Dublin—has proved persuasive to key players in the peace process outside Northern Ireland. Indeed, many terms of the Good Friday Agreement reflect measures the party has long advocated.

In contrast, Sinn Féin traditionally has argued that the Troubles are merely another example of the problems that British imperialism has visited upon Ireland and that the only solution is departure of the British and unification of the island. The IRA’s 1995 cease-fire was a historic move away from its traditional commitment to a military solution to end Britain’s sovereignty over Northern Ireland. Subsequently Sinn Féin scored electoral gains, even becoming the largest nationalist party (albeit by a small margin) in national and local elections in 2001.

The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland

Of the political parties that have sought to attract voters from both unionist and nationalist communities, only the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI) has had meaningful impact, though despite its success at the polls it has never become a major player in the political affairs of the region. Although formally supportive of the union, it has drawn backing from roughly equal numbers of unionists and nationalists, largely among middle-class liberals. Ironically, the advancing peace process appears to have eroded support for the APNI, one of the few local parties that has consistently championed negotiation and tolerance. Despite its attempt to remain outside either the nationalist or unionist camps within the Northern Ireland Assembly, in 2001 the APNI registered as a unionist party in order to provide a unionist majority for the first minister, saving Northern Ireland from even greater political turmoil.

Security

Policing is a politically contentious matter. After partition, policing in Northern Ireland was the responsibility of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), whose officers are overwhelmingly drawn from the unionist community, prompting deep distrust of the force by many nationalists. The Good Friday Agreement called for a reformed and smaller police force able to engage the support of the nationalist community. Published in December 2000, the report of the Patten Commission on policing recommended comprehensive reform of policing practice and structures. Many of its recommendations, including changing the RUC’s name to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, have been implemented.

Security forces in Northern Ireland (and the rest of the United Kingdom) have long had extensive powers to combat terrorism. In particular, they have special powers to arrest and interrogate individuals suspected of terrorist offenses. The number of people charged with terrorist or other serious offenses to the public order peaked at more than 1,400 in the early 1970s but had declined by about four-fifths that number by the beginning of the 21st century, as loyalist and IRA prisoners were released under provisions of the Good Friday Agreement.

In August 1969 sustained civil unrest led to the introduction of British troops onto the streets of Londonderry and Belfast, and the British army played a central and controversial role in the political tragedy that unfolded. (Significantly, the army recruited a regiment specifically composed of people from Northern Ireland; initially known as the Ulster Defence Regiment, this force merged with the Royal Irish Rangers in 1992 and was renamed the Royal Irish Regiment.) At the height of the Troubles, heavily armed soldiers and police officers were a common sight in Northern Ireland, with a peak of about 27,000 British troops garrisoned there. As the possibility of a settlement increased, however, the security forces became a much less visible presence, and in 2007 the army contingent was reduced to 5,000 troops, with the responsibility for security transferred completely to the police.

Throughout the Troubles, the Maze prison, located 10 miles (16 km) west of Belfast at a former Royal Air Force airfield, was a symbolic centre of the struggle between unionists and nationalists. The prison sometimes housed up to 1,700 prisoners, including many of the most notorious paramilitary offenders. The prison population was divided along paramilitary lines, with each prisoner responsible to his “commanding officer.” As a result, the prison was the site of many protests and violent activities, including hunger strikes, attempts at mass escape, and murder; it was considered by some to be a “university of terror,” where both unionist and nationalist prisoners learned how to commit deadlier terrorist offenses after their release. Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, most prisoners—including many who were convicted of murder—were released, and the prison was closed in 2000.

Health and welfare

In Northern Ireland the provision of health care is the responsibility of the Department of Health and Social Services. The Queen’s University has a large medical faculty that supports the health service. Northern Ireland is also known for its export of doctors and nurses.

Because it has traditionally been the most underdeveloped region of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland has had a comparatively high incidence of socioeconomic problems. Although joblessness declined in the 1990s, unemployment has remained high relative to the rest of the United Kingdom, and at the beginning of the 21st century only London, North East England, and Scotland had higher levels of unemployment. Moreover, wages are often lower and working conditions worse in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the United Kingdom. The coincidence of relatively high unemployment and comparatively poor wages has meant that the Northern Irish are more likely than British citizens in general to be dependent upon the state.

As in a number of other Western societies at the end of the 20th century, the gap between the rich and poor in Northern Ireland has widened. In 1979 one-tenth of the population of Northern Ireland resided in households earning less than 50 percent of the national average income; by 1999 this proportion had grown to one in four. As the number of relatively poor people has grown, so, too, has the number of comparatively wealthy, partly because of the rise in the number of management and professional positions in the public sector. Moreover, because housing prices are appreciably lower than the British average, the “new middle classes” in Northern Ireland are able to enjoy lifestyles that would be beyond their means if they lived in most other regions of the United Kingdom.

Housing

Substandard housing for the Catholic community was one of the grievances that led to protests by Catholics during the 1960s. At that time, less than two-thirds of Catholic homes—compared with about three-fourths of Protestant homes—had hot water. Moreover, the allocation of public housing units was under the control of Protestant-dominated local councils, which were accused of discriminatory practices. Over the last quarter of the 20th century, significant investments were made in housing, eliminating most inequities. Rates of home ownership increased significantly, especially because of policies implemented by the British government that allowed the sale of public housing units to their tenants. Whereas less than half of all homes were owned by their tenants in the early 1970s, by the end of the century more than 70 percent of homes were owner-occupied.

Education

While education policy in Northern Ireland has been strongly influenced by trends elsewhere within the United Kingdom, the region’s schools remain distinctive. Notably, the model of education practiced in Northern Ireland continues to be selective despite the government’s elimination in 2008 of the intelligence (“transfer”) tests that were administered to most children at about age 11 to determine the type of post-primary school they could attend—a grammar school (selective) or a secondary school (not selective). Those “eleven-plus” examinations had been eliminated earlier in most of the United Kingdom. Although those standardized tests were eliminated in Northern Ireland, schools were still allowed to use selective exams and procedures for admitting students. Grammar schools in Northern Ireland continue to cater to pupils deemed capable of appreciating an academic education; secondary schools offer more general and vocational training. Traditionally, Northern Irish schools have also been segregated along ethno-religious lines. Although formally open to all, the state-run schools have tended to attract Protestant children. Pupils from nationalist backgrounds typically have attended schools effectively under the control of the Catholic church. However, there are schools that draw more or less equally from both communities.

Northern Ireland has two universities. Queen’s University Belfast, established in 1845 as one of three in Ireland, has had a charter since 1908. The University of Ulster was established in 1984 by the merger of the New University of Ulster (at Coleraine) and the Ulster Polytechnic. It has campuses at Coleraine, Jordanstown, Derry, and Belfast.

Britannica Web sites

Northern Ireland is the smallest of the four parts of the United Kingdom, a country of western Europe. England, Scotland, and Wales are the other three parts. Northern Ireland is often called Ulster because it includes six of the nine counties that made up the ancient kingdom of Ulster. Its capital is Belfast.

The northeastern part of the island of Ireland is occupied by Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom. It covers only one sixth of the total area of the island but has about one third of the population. The rest of the island is occupied by the Republic of Ireland. The capital and largest city of Northern Ireland is Belfast.

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